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Cited by 317Open Source Software InnovationsSoftware Engineering ResearchSoftware Engineering Techniques and Practices

What’s in a GitHub Star? Understanding Repository Starring Practices in a Social Coding Platform

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Borges, Hudson, Tulio Valente, Marco·2018·Journal of Systems and Software
DOI 10.1016/j.jss.2018.09.016
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  • Stars often reflect social signaling or appreciation rather than governance maturity.

    “as Borges and Valente [5] note, stars often reflect social signaling or appreciation rather than governance maturity.”

    From Governance in Practice: How Open Source Projects Define and Document Roles (2026) · cites this paper as [5]

    Section 3.2.1 (pp. 7–8) reports that 52.5% of surveyed developers starred repositories to show appreciation, often using stars like a social-media “like” button. The Introduction (p. 3) warns that selecting projects by stars may favor effective marketing over established software-engineering practices. The paper does not assess governance maturity specifically, so that part of the comparison is not established. (LLM, conf=0.85)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

  • The number of GitHub stars is widely used when stakeholders evaluate, select, and adopt open-source projects into their software supply chain.

    “Many studies provided evidence that the number of GitHub stars is widely used when stakeholders evaluate, select, and adopt opensource projects into their software supply chain [33, 61, 71, 76, 89, 95].”

    From Six Million (Suspected) Fake Stars on GitHub: A Growing Spiral of Popularity Contests, Spams, and Malware (2026) · cites this paper as [33]

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Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Borges, H., & Tulio Valente, M.
Affiliations
Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (BR)
Corresponding author
Borges, Hudson
ORCID
Borges, Hudson
Venue
Journal of Systems and Software
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2018-12
Volume
146
Pages
112-129
ISSN
0164-1212 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1016/j.jss.2018.09.016
OpenAlex
W2890432166
Cited by
317
References
1
Citations by year
2026: 32 · 2025: 42 · 2024: 42 · 2023: 51 · 2022: 53 · 2021: 35 · 2020: 35 · 2019: 27
FWCI
30.98
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Journal of Systems and Software (publishedVersion)
  • arXiv (Cornell University) (publishedVersion)
  • arXiv (Cornell University)
Funders
  • Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico
  • Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior
  • Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de Minas Gerais
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computer Science Applications › Open Source Software Innovations
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Software Engineering Research
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Software Engineering Techniques and Practices
Keywords
social coding, open source projects, developer perceptions, time series clustering, social media marketing, project selection, developer survey

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